Hands-on with LG’s G2 smartphone (and the buttons on the back)

LG's new Android flagship is bigger, faster, and a few other things.

This morning, LG took the wraps off its latest flagship smartphone, the LG G2. The new phone drops the Optimus moniker, but it's very much the follow-up to last year's Optimus G (which was in turn the foundation for the Nexus 4). The new phone also comes with new silicon—just as last year's Optimus G was one of the first to launch with Qualcomm's quad-core Snapdragon S4 Pro, the G2 is the first major phone to use its latest Snapdragon 800 system-on-a-chip (SoC).

Andrew Cunningham

LG's new flagship, the G2.

Andrew Cunningham

LG's new flagship, the G2.

Andrew Cunningham

The G2's buttons move from the top and sides to the back, which is a little awkward but ultimately not a huge deal.

Andrew Cunningham

The phone's profile is quite slim. Note that the 13MP OIS camera lens doesn't protrude from the rear of the phone.

Andrew Cunningham

The speaker grilles on the bottom of the phone, partially obscured by LG's security hardware.

Andrew Cunningham

The 1920×1080 screen is bright, crisp, and colorful.

Andrew Cunningham

LG's software keyboard. The G2's Android skin is the same one that LG uses for its other phones.

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Selecting apps that will be accessible to users in Guest Mode.

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A multitasking feature called "slide aside" lets you dismiss apps with a three-finger wipe to the left and recall them with another swipe.

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Holding down the software Home button will reveal Android's standard multitasking menu, too.

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The camera mode. I had the most trouble with the camera's rear-facing buttons when I tried to take pictures in landscape.

Andrew Cunningham

A few of the colorful cases LG is offering for the G2.

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Some of the cases have front covers, sort of like Samsung's flip covers for the Galaxy S 4.

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The G2 in black. The front is reminiscent of the Nexus 4.

As with most high-profile Android phone launches lately, there was little we didn't know about the G2 before executives got up on stage with giant person-sized mock-ups of the hardware. Still, LG is doing some interesting things within the bigger-better-faster template that's becoming the standard for flagship Android launches.

First there's the design, which has changed substantially since the first Optimus G. That phone was a barely rounded rectangle with a glass back. As someone who uses an iPhone 4S and a (similarly glass-backed, LG-made) Nexus 4 on the regular, I can say that glass backs look very nice for the 20 seconds between when you take the plastic off and when you begin smudging and scratching it.

However, I'm less than thrilled with the glass back's plastic replacement, which is distinctly Samsung-esque. It's a lighter phone than its large size might suggest, but the plastic is glossy and slippery and there's not much texture to hold on to. The squarish corners have also been traded for rounded ones more reminiscent of the Nexus 4, which the phone strongly resembles from the front.

There are two unique things about the G2's design. The first is that the side bezels have been shrunk down to the point where they're nearly non-existent—they're just 0.1 inches thick on either side of the screen. This is enabled in part by something LG calls "dual routing," which connects the screen's capacitive layer to the touch controller through routes from above and below the screen. Most phones have all the routes coming from either above the screen or below the screen, requiring thicker side bezels to fit them all.

The second design touch comes in the buttons, which have been moved from their positions on the top and sides of the phone to the back. The volume rocker and power button are now a single piece on the back of the phone, a decision LG reportedly arrived at based on observing how people use their phones. The buttons can also be used to launch applications and as a camera shutter.

Enlarge/ The G2's buttons move from the top and sides to the back, which is a little awkward but ultimately not a huge deal.

Andrew Cunningham

When I'm holding a phone, I'll generally keep my thumb on the right edge to more easily tap the power button and wrap my index finger around to the left edge to interact with the volume buttons (at least, for phones with a side-mounted power button). LG's button layout is designed to be the most convenient when you're holding the phone to the side of your head in portrait mode.

After forcing myself to hold the phone the way it was designed to be held, I actually didn't mind the button arrangement. It's certainly easier to reach the power button on the back of a phone this large, rather than on the top (one of the few things I strongly dislike about the HTC One). The button arrangement irked me most when I was taking the camera for a spin—I typically hold my phones by the edges in landscape mode and use the volume buttons on the sides as shutters, point-and-shoot style. The G2's volume down button still functions as a shutter, but on the back of the phone it's harder to use this way in landscape mode (even if it's easier to do in portrait mode). If you're like me, you'll have to develop a new appreciation for the on-screen shutter button.

The screen is a 5.2-inch 1920×1080 IPS display, which is bright, colorful, and clear. I've spent the last few days with both the Google Play edition Galaxy S 4 and the Moto X, both of which have AMOLED screens. By comparison, the G2's screen has colors that pop without being too saturated or harsh as they can be on AMOLED.

Finally, let's talk about the camera, which is a 13MP shooter that comes with optical image stabilization (OIS). OIS is becoming commonplace on Nokia's camera-centric Windows phones of late, and we're definitely glad to see it making an appearance on a flagship Android phone. LG had a camera-shake demonstration that showed the feature in action, and the company also claims this feature will help produce better shots in low light.

On the inside

Enlarge/ Qualcomm's Steve Mollenkopf talks up the Snapdragon 800 in the G2.

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As with the outside, there are two unique things inside the G2. The first (and biggest) is that the G2 is the first phone we've seen that uses Qualcomm's Snapdragon 800 SoC, an upgraded version of the Snapdragon 600 SoC we've been seeing in other high-end phones all year. The 800's four CPU cores use Qualcomm's Krait 400 CPU architecture (which is marginally more efficient than the Krait 300 used in the Snapdragon 600), and they run at a higher 2.3GHz clock speed than the 1.7GHz and 1.9GHz Snapdragon 600 chips we've seen.

The GPU is new too, swapping the Snapdragon 600's 400MHz Adreno 320 for a new Adreno 330 running at 450MHz. 2GB of RAM and 16GB and 32GB (non-expandable) storage options are also on tap, and while we couldn't run any benchmarks on the G2s that LG had on display, initial reports about the SoC's performance have been quite positive. Android 4.2.2 ran very smoothly on the display devices, and apps and other software features opened without hesitation.

The second big internal feature is smaller, but still significant. The G2 includes a small amount of graphic RAM, or GRAM, used for panel self-refresh. When the image on the screen isn't changing, the phone will save the static image to the GRAM and display that instead of keeping the GPU active. This is a feature Intel has been pushing for PCs within the last couple of years, and its power-saving potential could be even more useful in a smartphone (the G2, incidentally, uses a large, non-removable 3000 mAh battery).

Software features

Enlarge/ Selecting apps that will be accessible to users in Guest Mode.

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Finally, LG is adding to Android to make its phone stand out. The basic skin is a simple evolution of what the company is already offering in its other phones, but once again there are two features that we paid particular attention to.

The first is something LG is calling KnockON—if your phone is in standby with the screen off, tap on your phone's screen emphatically three times to wake it up. Given that the power button is now on the rear of the device, this will be appreciated by people who leave their phones resting on the table or desk next to them as they work.

The second is called Guest Mode, and it's very similar to the new Restricted Profile feature that Google introduced for tablets in Android 4.3. Turn Guest Mode on and then specify two different patterns to unlock your phone—one that gives you full access to all of your data and apps and one that lets you run a user-specified subset of the applications that you've installed on your phone. One LG exec referred to this as "Kid Mode," and that's an apt description. If you want to let your child play games without giving them the ability to mess with any of your other stuff, this will be a useful feature.

The G2 will be available on all four major US carriers later this year, but LG didn't announce a price and a specific release date today. We'll pass this information on as soon as we have it, and we'll give the phone a more thorough review when we're able to spend additional time with the final hardware.

Andrew Cunningham / Andrew has a B.A. in Classics from Kenyon College and has over five years of experience in IT. His work has appeared on Charge Shot!!! and AnandTech, and he records a weekly book podcast called Overdue.